Page 212 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

We hadn’t been here long, he told me, only a day. The others had retreated to the rendezvous point outside of Sivrinaj, in one of the cities that the Hiaj had managed to maintain control of, but it was just a matter of time until Simon would go after them there. They were licking their wounds, too, and would fall back farther to the cliffs when given the command.

The battle, in short, had been a fucking disaster.

Yes, we’d managed to destroy most of the defensive measures around Sivrinaj, and if nothing else, we’d managed to kill a large number of Simon’s forces. But he’d killed plenty of ours, too.

And what Septimus had done to Simon… the pendant, theteeth…

Mother, had I imagined that? It felt like a dream. A Goddess-damned nightmare.

Where the hell did we go from here?

“We have to go back,” I said.

“Not until you can travel,” he said.

“I feel—”

Fine.

Shockingly enough, I actuallydidfeel fine. Dizzy, yes. Weak. But... miraculously healed, all things considered. Alya was behind me, administering medicine to a wound on my back. It hurt, making me draw in a hiss through my teeth.

But pain was manageable.

Pain wasn’t death.

I looked down at my arms, where I knew I’d been wounded badly. Only faint red marks remained, scabbing over with dark red.

Raihn followed my gaze, a faint smile twisting his lips. “It turns out your aunt is a hell of a healer.”

“We had some help,” she added. “From his blood.”

Everyone was speaking as if this was all very normal. But the normalcy of it was the most confusing of all.

Aunt. Goddess help me. I didn’t even know where to start.

“How did you know to bring me here?” I asked Raihn.

His smile faded—like he was slipping back into that memory.

“Honestly?” he said. “I don’t have a damned clue. I knew the name from your mother’s letters, and the city. I knew whoever had written them was a healer. And I was—I was desperate. I didn’t know where to go. Not sure why I ended up here.”

Behind me, Alya let out a low laugh. “Fate,” she said. “It’s beyond mortal understanding.”

I wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. She had a flat affectation that sounded like it could be either blunt seriousness or dry humor. Still… either way, I couldn’t help but agree with her.

She lifted my left arm, checking a bandage around my shoulder. “You’re lucky he thought to bring you here,” she said. “Nyaxia’s magic wouldn’t have been able to help you nearly as well.”

“What magic is this?” I asked.

“Acaeja’s. Vampire magic alone wouldn’t have been able to save you.”

Alya let my arm fall and stood, repositioning herself at the foot of the bed so I could see her. She had a steady, piercing gaze. I didn’t like it. It felt like she could see far too much of me.

That stare slid away, like it made her uncomfortable, too. “Never thought some twenty-five-year-old letters from my sister would lead us here. I’ll tell you that much.”

Vincent’s lies had shattered my belief in fate. But the fact that Raihn had found those letters, this name, this place—the fact that he’d thought to bring me here, of all places, when in his panic—

It felt something like it.

---